A university student learns that a woman can train her body to produce milk even if she’s never been pregnant. She tries and succeeds, then meets a ‘farmer’ who wants her to roleplay being his human-cow hybrid. Little did either of them realize that it would become much more than just fun and games.
How I Became a Hucow, Part 5 consists of the following chapters:
Chapter 14 – How I Got My Hoof in the Door at the Milk Bank
Chapter 15 – How I Thought I Really Was a Hucow
Chapter 16 – How We Acquired a Mysterious Antique Cowbell
Chapter 14 – How I Got My Hoof in the Door at the Milk Bank
During my final semester, in addition to getting the tattoos, I was trying to find a job for after graduation. I still didn’t have any real direction, though, and so I was just interviewing for random jobs that I was qualified for and which were reasonably local to the university, but which I didn’t really have any passion for. I never got past the first interview for any of these; I’m sure they could tell my heart wasn’t in it.
Meanwhile, I’d been donating my milk at the milk bank drop off center at the university hospital for nearly a year and a half now, not counting the summer I’d interned. Regardless, It was very unusual for anyone to do it that long, and so they’d gotten to know me and I them. They knew that I’d induced lactation, which was even more unusual, and of course they knew I was donating a pretty substantial amount of milk since I didn’t have an infant to feed.
One time there I’d mentioned in passing that I was graduating soon and needed to stay local, since Kyle was going to be at the university for at least another three years, but I hadn’t had much luck finding a job. They commiserated with me but that’s as far as it went, and I didn’t think anything more of it.
But two weeks later when I went to drop off my milk, one of the women working there asked me if I was in a hurry. I told her I was on my way to a class so I couldn’t linger, and she asked me to come back when I did have time, that the boss ladies wanted to talk to me about something.
I was very curious about what they wanted to discuss, and so the following day, I returned to find out. I was ushered into the office of the woman in charge, a Mrs. Schwaiger. I’d seen her around but had never interacted with her directly before. She introduced herself and thanked me for selflessly going to all the trouble of inducing and for my faithful donations over the past year and a half. She then got to the reason she wanted to see me.
“My staff tells me that you’re graduating soon and in need of a job, and it looks like we’ll be having an opening here soon. They thought you might be a good fit here, and so I wanted to make you aware of this, get to know you a little better, and see if we have a mutual interest in you filling the vacant position.”
I was immediately interested, of course, and in shock that they’d even consider me for the job. “Wow, I don’t know what to say!” I exclaimed. “Thank you for thinking of me! Yes, I’m interested!”
“Not so fast, Ella,” Mrs. Schwaiger said. “You haven’t even heard anything about the position yet.”
“I know,” I replied. “I’m interested anyway.”
Mrs. Schwaiger chuckled and said, “Well, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but let’s go through the process anyway, if you don’t mind.
“Now, I don’t know how much you know about how we’re organized here, so let me walk you through it. We are not the milk bank; we’re partners with them. We’re actually part of the hospital. As you know, we collect milk given by donors such as yourself and the milk bank comes and picks it up to be processed. However, we also receive processed milk from the milk bank and distribute it to our NICU, the hospital pharmacy, and other places in the area.
“Now, most of the people you see working here are actually volunteers. However, the milk bank requires that we have a paid employee here at all times we’re open, receive deliveries, or have them come for pickups – someone with authority to make decisions and sign documents on behalf of the facility. And so the hospital has two employees to run the center so that we can have coverage at all times – myself as the coordinator and Whitney Chadwick as the assistant coordinator.
“Well, my husband is an associate professor at the university, and he’s accepted a full professorship at an out-of-state university starting in the fall. That means I’ll be resigning, Whitney will get promoted, and we’ll have an opening for a new assistant coordinator. We need a transition period so that the new assistant coordinator can get up to speed before she actually has any official responsibilities, so we’re looking for someone who can start this summer. The position requires a bachelor’s degree, which you’ll have very soon. If I may ask, Ella, what is your major and grade point average?”
“Health Sciences, with a 3.75 GPA,” I replied.
“Perfect,” Mrs. Schwaiger replied. “And do you have any relevant work experience?”
“Well, last summer I interned at a big pharmaceutical company. Otherwise, no. But I do have a pretty good understanding of what you do here from being a donor for as long as I have.” I suddenly thought of something else. “Oh! This might be relevant: Also last summer, I was a volunteer at a NICU in a different hospital, so I have experience feeding preemies donated breast milk.”
She considered that. “That’s a pretty good balance of experiences, I’d say. Was the internship paid or unpaid?”
“Unpaid,” I replied.
“So you’ve volunteered in all three situations,” she summarized. “That’s good. We’re very dependent on volunteers here, both on the nursing mothers going to the trouble of donating their excess milk, and also on the women who freely give their time to work here. Even though you’ll be paid, you’ll still be able to lead the volunteers by example.”
We talked about the job duties of the assistant coordinator position and the working environment and expectations. We talked more about me – about what led me to inducing lactation, and how I’d steadily been able to increase my milk production over time. We talked about Kyle and how he’d be a doctoral student for probably another three years. Finally we talked about salary. The pay was actually pretty low based on my qualifications, but Mrs. Schwaiger was firm about not being able to pay me any more.
She said, “I know you deserve more than that, but my hands are tied. We operate on shoestring budget. Everyone but you and Whitney will be here working for free.”
I would have liked to be making more than they could offer of course, but for the first time, I now knew exactly what I wanted to do for my career and specifically for my first paid job. I told the lady that I was nevertheless interested.
She wanted me to come back when Whitney was there to talk to her as well, since she’d be my boss and the one I’d be working most closely with. She also wanted me to send her my resume. I did both, and Whitney and I really hit it off. She was much closer to my age, in her late 20s I’d say, and was a single mom. Like me, she’d gotten started there after first donating milk.
Once Whitney gave her blessing, Mrs. Schwaiger posted the job opening and had me formally apply. No matter who else applied, the job was pretty much mine, and I knew it. They had me come back in for the official interview, but we’d already done that informally so we used the time to get to know each other better. Once the job had been posted for the minimum number of days, Mrs. Schwaiger called me to officially offer me the job and I accepted. I’d start after I graduated on a date we’d work out after I talked to Kyle.
I spent the summer working with both Mrs. Schwaiger and Whitney to learn the ropes. As Whitney taught me how to do her job, I took on more of her responsibilities, freeing her up to learn Mrs. Schwaiger’s job.
The first things Kyle and I did with my paycheck was to buy a small chest freezer that I could use for storing milk between when I’d pumped it and when I brought it to the center, and a larger insulated cooler for transporting the milk to the center. The freezer made our apartment kitchen rather cramped, but that was an inconvenience we’d just have to put up with. Next after that was to buy a practical used car. For too long we’d gotten by with Kyle’s old Bronco as our only means of transportation besides walking or using the campus shuttle bus.
For the first few months I worked there, I was careful not to do anything to reveal my hucow kink and worked hard at being professional and earning the respect of Whitney, the volunteers, the donors, and the milk bank employees I encountered. But Halloween was fast approaching and Whitney encouraged everyone to wear a costume that day. It occurred to be that I could go full hucow that day without anyone suspecting anything.
So that day I wore my hairband with the cow horns and ears, my cowbell collar, a cowprint leotard, sleeves, and stockings, a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the shirttails tied in a knot at the bottom, and a knee-length denim skirt. I debated whether to wear a strap-on tail or not, and decided that it might be a bit much.
I got a lot of favorable reactions about my costume, mostly smiles and comments along the lines of “how appropriate for a milk bank”.
But late in the afternoon, after the center had closed and the volunteers had gone home, Whitney said to me, “It’s a shame you didn’t wear a cow tail with that. It would have really completed the costume.”
On an impulse, I smiled and said to her, “Oh, but I do have one,” as I turned facing away from her and lifted my skirt enough that the tail tattoo was visible. I turned my head back toward her to see her reaction.
She looked astonished and was speechless for a moment. Then she said, “In that case, it’s a shame you didn’t wear a shorter skirt. I guess I don’t have to wonder whether you’re a hucow anymore. You’re a whole lot more into it than I am.”
“You’re a hucow, too?” I asked her, though the answer was obvious from her remarks. I hadn’t had a clue.
“Until a minute ago, I would’ve said yes. I roleplay some with my boyfriend,” she replied, “and I have the accessories. But you take it to a whole ‘nother level, between inducing lactation and getting a tail tat. You’re hardcore, Ella. You make me look like an amateur.”
“Why didn’t you wear your hucow costume today?” I asked her.
“I guess I’m not as brave as you are,” she replied. “I’ve never done anything here to even hint that I’m into that stuff. You’re the only one here who knows. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep it to yourself.”
“You keep my secret, and I’ll keep yours. Deal?”
“Deal.”
After that, I felt a bond with Whitney that wasn’t there before. We were secret hucow sisters now. We understood each other.
Chapter 15 – How I Thought I Really Was a Hucow
One night I had a very vivid dream that Mr. Meyer had given Kyle some pills that he said could actually transform me into a real hucow. Kyle was eager for me to try them of course, but I first wanted more information about what that actually meant, whether the change was permanent, and so on.
Kyle explained that the pills would cause me to sprout cow horns and a cow tail, my ears would change into cow ears, my feet would change into cow hooves, and I would grow two additional breasts below the two I already had. I would periodically have an irresistible urge to moo. The pills would also enhance and lock in the effects of other hormones Mr. Meyer had provided, increasing further my milk production, nipple and breast size and sensitivity, and libido. And yes, the changes would be both rapid and permanent.
However, this was a lucid dream, meaning that in the dream, I was fully aware that I was experiencing a dream and could consciously decide what to do. Because of that, I figured what the hell, and eagerly gobbled down the pills. In a matter of minutes, I’d transformed into exactly what Kyle had described. My tail was black and white and furry, and so were my lower legs and ears; my ears were big and floppy enough that I could pull them into my line of sight. I found I had the ability to move my tail and ears around without touching them with my hands.
All four of my boobs were very heavy and full of milk and I became extremely horny. I was desperate to have my teats fondled and sucked and my pussy rammed through by a hot young bull. I begged Kyle to milk me and f**k me, but he wasn’t moving fast enough, and I began tugging on my teats with one hand and massaging my clit with the other. Milk was spraying all over the place as I brought myself to one orgasm after another, but I didn’t care.
Kyle had no choice to put me in a barn, shackle my wrists behind my back, and hook all four of my teats up to a cow milking machine. Being milked brought me relief but also caused me to continually orgasm, and my cunt was still desperate to be filled with both dick and cum. I continued to loudly beg Kyle to f**k me, and he did, repeatedly, but it wasn’t nearly enough, and I begged him for more. His tank was dry, though and there was nothing he could do for a while.
He got tired of hearing me beg for dick when he couldn’t do anything about it, and he put a ball gag in my mouth to stifle the sound. However, this ball gag converted any effort on my part to speak or scream or make any other noise into soft, contented mooing sounds. The milking machine could barely keep up with my milk production, and so I had no choice but to stay in my stall, be constantly milked, moo as I experienced endless orgasms, and impatiently wait for Kyle to come f**k me again. Indeed, there was nothing else I wanted to do.
After a while, I awoke from the dream, and realized I was very full of milk and very horny. It was no surprise I was full; it had been several hours since I’d pumped, and no doubt I was horny due to the dream. I fingered myself for a minute and brought myself to orgasm, and then got up to go pump.
I put my feet on the floor and immediately realized something was off. I couldn’t actually feel the carpet, nor could I wiggle my toes. It was as if I were wearing shoes, which of course, I would never do while in bed sleeping. Confused, I looked down at my feet. Though it was still dark, there was enough light in the room that I could see that my lower legs and feet were those of a cow! I couldn’t feel the floor because I had hooves!
I tried to scream, but it came out as a loud, desperate moo instead. Still, it was loud enough to awaken Kyle. Groggily he asked, “What’s the matter, Ellie Moo?” He’d called me by my hucow name. Meanwhile, I’d felt the other parts of my body that had been made cow-like in the dream, and it was the same story. I had real horns, cow ears, and a tail, and they were all parts of my body, not accessories. And even more amazing, I had four huge breasts, all of which I could clearly feel.
Panicked, I exclaimed to Kyle, “I just had a dream that I was a real hucow, and when I woke up, I am a real hucow, with four boobs and a tail and everything!” Fortunately, I hadn’t lost the ability to speak.
“Of course you are. Don’t you remember?” he replied as he turned on the light. He looked me over, and said, “Very nice. You turned out even better than I expected.” Again, I tried to scream but only mooed.
“I don’t remember anything except the dream!” I exclaimed. “How can any of this be real? Kyle, what did you do to me?!”
“Come on, we’d better get you hooked up to your pumps before you make a big mess,” he said, ignoring my questions. He led me by the hand to the hucow barn, which of course was really the second bedroom in our apartment, as I continued to pepper him with questions.
“Take off your nightgown,” he told me, and your panties, too, and get up on this.” He was referring to a table of sorts, which was new; the corners were higher than the center. It was obvious that I was supposed to get on my hands and knees, with my hands on the front corners of the table, and my knees and lower legs at the rear corners. This let my four watermelon-sized udders hang down freely. He then attached clear suction cups to each of my four teats. These were connected via hoses to a commercial milking machine in the corner, which was also new. He fired up the machine, and it began squeezing milk out of my teats. The sensation was very pleasurable, even arousing, and I mooed contentedly.
Next Kyle put shackles around my wrists and ankles and secured them to the table. I was enjoying the milking so much that I barely noticed and didn’t care. Then he took another hose connected to what looked like a vat, and put it deep into my mouth. It had a piece that covered my mouth, and he secured it with straps that went around my neck and head. I couldn’t open my mouth any further, not even in the corners. He turned on another machine and it began pumping sweet, creamy liquid into my mouth. Most of it went straight down my throat, but the end of the hose had small holes on the sides so that some of it went into my mouth where I could taste it. It was delicious; I eagerly gulped it down, adding to my pleasure. In reality, I had no choice, because if I didn’t swallow it I would suffocate. I quickly learned to alternate swallows with breaths.
Finally, Kyle positioned himself behind me, put his hands on my hips, and proceeded to f**k me hard as he reassuringly told me what a good cow I was. All of this happening simultaneously was too much, and I exploded into one long continuous orgasm. It was without question the most amazing thing I’d ever experienced. Almost enough that I didn’t mind that I was now a real hucow, but not quite.
After a while, Kyle ran dry, my udders ran dry, the vat of liquid ran dry, and my orgasm ended. Kyle dismounted, turned off the machines, and removed the hoses. I just stayed there, still shackled to the table, panting for air, trying to make sense of everything that had happened since I woke up from my dream. I couldn’t.
When I sufficiently caught my breath, I said to Kyle, “That was amazing beyond words – ‘udderly’ amazing, in fact. But what happened? How did I become a hucow for real? What was that creamy stuff you pumped down my throat? Did I consent to any of this? I can’t remember.”
“Well, I’m really glad you still have your wits about you, Ellie Moo,” Kyle replied. “Most of them, anyway. Mr. Meyer told me – us – that significantly reduced intelligence was a possible side effect, and you seemed to have been spared that.”
“A side effect of what?” I asked, still trying to get to the bottom of what was going on. “Moooo,” I blurted out involuntarily.
“A side effect of the hucow transformation process,” he replied as if I knew what that was.
“Kyle, you’re going to have to explain it like I have no idea what’s going on, because I don’t. I don’t remember anything that led up to this.”
“Okay. Mr. Meyer came up with this new highly experimental, highly illegal gene therapy that actually combines human and cattle DNA in specific ways, transforming the human into a human-cow hybrid. He asked us, or more specifically, you, if you’d be willing to be his first test subject. He trusted us to keep this on the down low and keep him out of prison. He laid out all of the expected and possible outcomes, the risks and potential benefits, and drew up a contract for you to sign. You considered it for quite a while before finally deciding to go ahead with it.
You were unconscious as your body was transforming, but in your own bed. He couldn’t very well do this in a hospital, obviously. That’s where you’ve been for the past 48 hours or so. It’s been nearly a full time job keeping your breasts pumped during the time you were out. Your milk production has increased dramatically, before even taking into account that you now have two additional breasts. We’ve had to keep you fed and hydrated intravenously, but he had me disconnect the IVs once you began waking up.”
“What was that stuff you were force feeding me?” I asked.
“That was a nutritional mix that Mr. Meyer wanted me to feed you as soon as you woke up. The intravenous stuff wasn’t ideal – it was drastically diluted so it could be put directly into your bloodstream. He said it was crucial to get the really rich stuff into you as soon as possible. Also, this first batch contained a chemical additive that makes your physical changes permanent. That couldn’t be put into the IV, either.”
“Permanent?” I asked in disbelief. “So now what? I’m a real, live hucow for the rest of my life?” I asked in ‘udder’ shock.
“That’s right! That’s what you signed up for,” Kyle replied. “It’s going to be great! Your life is going to just be continuously eating, f**king, and making lots and lots of milk, often all three at once, like we just did!”
“Kyle, please let me out of these shackles now,” I requested as calmly and nicely as I could. I knew I had to get out of there and get some help. This was all just too crazy.
“No can do, Ellie Moo,” he said, laughing at his own rhyme. “Mr. Meyer said if your intelligence wasn’t sufficiently reduced you’d probably try to escape, at least at first, and we can’t have you going out in public looking like that. There’s too much at stake. Eventually you’ll get used to and accept your new reality – appreciate it, even – and then I’ll be able to free you.”
It occurred to me that it probably wouldn’t take much for me to appreciate my new reality. A life of continuously eating, f**king, being milked, and orgasming didn’t sound so terribly bad, and being a human-cow hybrid sounded, and felt, incredibly erotic. I longed to touch my cow parts, but since I was shackled to the table, I’d just have to settle for moving my cow ears and tail around. “Moooo,” I said for no particular reason.
Then I came back to my senses and remembered that I needed to fight this. I fought against my restraints, and loudly yelled, “No! No! No! No! No!” I paused, and then said, “No, no… no…” much more softly and less confidently, and then I began crying. I didn’t know what I wanted, and I was so confused.
And then somehow, I was back in my bed in my dark bedroom, my eyes wide open, my heart racing, and still softly saying “No… no… maybe… maybe,” and quietly crying. I reflexively sat up in the bed, confused and completely disoriented.
Kyle was in bed next to me, and I later learned I woke him from a sound sleep. He sat up next to me and said out of genuine concern, “Ella! What’s wrong? Talk to me!” as he tried to put his arm around me and comfort me.
I came back to my senses and knew I had to escape fast. “Get away from me, you sick monster!!!” I screamed at him as I recoiled from his touch and tried to get away. But when my feet hit the carpet, I realized I could feel it. I looked down and saw I had my normal feet. Then I felt my abdomen, and my head. Only two boobs, and no cow horns or ears. I reached back and felt my rump. No tail.
“What’s going on?! Why did you change me back? I was just starting to like it!” I wailed at Kyle. I was so mixed up, I didn’t know what to think, and I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there and began to sob.
Kyle, to his credit, bolted out of bed and came to my side, again trying to hold me and console me. This time I let him. “I didn’t do anything, I promise! I don’t even know what you’re talking about! You were having a nightmare! But you’re awake now, and it’s all over. You’re safe now.”
I was traumatized and inconsolable, but I realized I’d been dreaming and that the real Kyle wasn’t a threat. He gently walked me back to the bed and sat down with me. I just hung onto him for dear life and continued to cry for a good five minutes.
Finally I was able to speak, between sobs at first, but gradually those subsided. I told him everything I could remember, including dreaming that I’d woken up from a lucid dream and assuming that I therefore had to be awake, but the second dream that I didn’t know was a dream was worse than the first.
“You experienced what’s called a ‘false awakening’ dream,” Kyle told me. “I’ve read about them but have never known anyone who’s experienced one until know. I understand they can be very disorienting. It’s no wonder you’re confused and upset, Ella.”
“But there was more to it than that,” I explained. “In the second dream, I felt like you’d turned me into a real hucow against my will, even though you’d said I’d given consent. Part of me was outraged and terrified and trying to escape, but another part of me was accepting of it, even looking forward to it. That’s what was most frightening – that I’d be even remotely okay with being a real, live human-cow hybrid.
“But even now that I’m awake and hopefully rational, the idea of doing that doesn’t seem completely out of the question. If it were even possible, of course, which it’s not. What do you think that means, Kyle? Am I going batshit crazy?”
“No, I don’t think so,” he replied. “I might think that if it became an obsession or something, but just thinking it wouldn’t be entirely terrible seems reasonable, at least to me. I don’t think I’d go around telling anyone else about this, though, if I were you.”
“No, I don’t think I will,” I said. “No one else would understand, maybe not even the Meyers.”
Over the course of the next few days and weeks, I repeatedly thought about the dream, and each time I did, the less crazy it seemed, and the less I resisted the idea of being the world’s first real human-cow hybrid. Eventually, I began wishing it were really possible, just like I had dreamed.
I began to resent that I didn’t actually have real cow hooves and horns and ears and a tail and four watermelon-sized udders. But I never dared tell anyone this, not even Kyle. Instead, I became more and more bold about going out in public wearing cowprint clothing and cow accessories, and even sometimes allowed my tail tattoo to be seen.
Chapter 16 – How We Acquired a Mysterious Antique Cowbell
Some months later, I was in an antique store looking for cow-related knick-knacks and selected a few items to purchase. I happened to be wearing my hairband with the cow ears and horns and a pair of shorts that revealed the bottom of my cow tail tattoo. I had put those on that day without even giving it any thought.
The store proprietor noticed all of this, and as I put my items on counter, he said to me, “I couldn’t help but notice you’re a cow enthusiast, so much so that you pretend to be one yourself,” as he looked up at my horns. “I happen to have something under the counter that might be right up your alley.”
He reached under the counter and retrieved a beat up cloth bag with a drawstring. He pulled out of the bag a small, ornate wooden box, and then opened the hinged lid so I could see inside. The interior of the box was lined with velvet with some kind of padding under it, and the sole content was a small cowbell attached to a leather collar that looked to be the right size for a person, not a cow. Everything appeared to be very old.
“I already have one of those at home,” I said, “but thanks anyway.”
“I’m sure you don’t have one like this,” he replied. “An elderly woman brought this in a few months ago, and she told me an amazing story about it. I bought it from her on the spot, and I’ve been waiting for just the right customer to show it to. You seem like the kind of person who’d be interested.
“She told me it had belonged to her grandmother, who told her that it once belonged to her grandmother. The story that had been passed down was that the cowbell and/or the collar, I’m not sure which, is enchanted. Supposedly, if a woman wears this on the night of a full moon, she’ll temporarily take on some attributes of a cow, for the duration of the night or until she removes the collar, whichever is longer. It she leaves the collar on for an entire month until the next full moon, the changes become permanent.
“This is explained in writing on a piece of paper tucked into a pocket on the inside of the lid, which I’ve seen. However, the paper is very fragile and so I don’t want to handle it again. While I had it out, I wrote down what it said for future reference. I’ll include a copy of that as well.
“The woman who brought this in here said her grandmother told her she’d once actually seen her own grandmother wearing the collar and cowbell and at the time had cow horns and ears and a tail that were actually attached to her body. She – the grandmother’s grandmother – had said she wanted to make the changes permanent, but didn’t out of fear that the people in her town would label her a demon or a witch and put her to death.
“Everything you see here – the cowbell, the collar, the box, the satchel, the paper inside, and the copy of what the paper said, can be yours for a very reasonable sum of only five thousand dollars. What do you think?”
I’d been very intrigued by the man’s sales pitch, of course, but I couldn’t let him think that I was. “I think that’s an awful lot of money for an old cowbell with a crazy story associated with it. Who knows if there’s even a shred of truth to it? I’d say it’s highly likely that there isn’t,” I told him, trying hard to sound skeptical.
“If I had a way to test it out, I would’ve already done so,” the store owner replied. “But no woman I know, including the one who brought this in, even wants to touch the thing with a ten foot pole. If I’d been able to test it and discovered it worked, this artifact would be priceless. There’d be worldwide interest and I’d be a billionaire by the time the bidding war ended.
“What I’m offering you is the opportunity to test it for yourself. If it doesn’t work, you’ll have a very overpriced old cowbell with an interesting story to go with it. But if it does work, you’ll have something priceless that you got for an absolute steal. You could sell it or rent it out and be rich beyond your wildest dreams. You could keep it all to yourself and enjoy it every month. You could use it to change yourself permanently and then sell it or rent it out. The possibilities are endless.”
I knew the odds of it not working were overwhelmingly high, in which case he was asking me to pay thousands of dollars for something that was worth maybe $10 or $20 tops. But yet… I told the shopkeeper, “I can’t make a decision like this without discussing it with my husband. Would you at least give me a copy of what’s written on that paper so I can show it to him?”
“Of course,” he said, “but please realize, it was written probably close to two hundred years ago, quite possibly much earlier than that, and it’s a free verse poem, so it’s a bit cryptic.” He pulled a modern, typed piece of paper from under the counter and handed it to me. “My name’s Gene Ingram. You know where to find me if you or your husband have questions or decide to go ahead with it,” he said with a smile.
I took the paper and put it in my purse. “Meanwhile, I still want to buy these,” I told him, referring to the figurines that we’d both pretty much forgotten about.
I went home and told Kyle all about my encounter with the antique store owner Mr. Ingram, the cowbell and collar itself, and everything he said about it. I showed him the paper with the poem on it. Like me, he thought it was a crazy scam, but yet he was still intrigued by the tiny possibility that it could be real.
We studied the poem together, trying to glean some insight into what we should do. It read,
A lady would do well to be thought a cow,
A noble, majestic creature with the sustenance of life,
To feed her own young and those of any who should ask,
Freely given, asking nothing in return but room and board
A lady would do well to become a cow,
In part, for a time, when the moon is bright,
To experience the nature of the gentle beast,
To give the precious fluid only she can provide
A collar, a cowbell, is all that she needs,
Adorning her neck when the moon is a platter,
She’ll still be a woman but also a cow,
Until the sun rises and her neck becomes bare
A lady would do well to remain a cow,
In part, unchanging, for the rest of her days,
When the moon becomes full and she’s still such a beast,
She’ll forever remain with collar and cowbell in place
The meaning of the poem seemed clear enough to us. The only things unclear were the details. What exactly did it mean to be ‘a cow in part’ or to ‘be a woman but also a cow”? Certainly the poem implied that the woman would lactate, perhaps in quantities like a cow. Would the milk be cow’s milk or human milk or some combination of the two? Would anything be different if the woman were already lactating? There was no way to know.
“Would you like to be the woman in the poem?” Kyle asked me.
“Of course, yes!” I replied. I could think of nothing I wanted more. “At least to try it out. It sounds like it would only be for one night if you remove the collar, and depending on when you put it on, it could be even less than that.”
“Well the only way that’ll be possible, if it even is possible, would be to get our hands on that cowbell and collar,” Kyle reasoned.
“You’re not seriously thinking of spending thousands of dollars to see if what the poem says is actually true, are you?” I asked him.
“We’ll either have to buy it from the guy, or work out some other arrangement with him. Hopefully, he’ll be willing to budge on the price, or perhaps you can be his test subject without having to buy it.”
“If he found that it worked and the collar was still his property, he’d never sell it to us unless we won the lottery first,” I told him.
“Good point,” Kyle replied, “but we still might be able to come up with something where we share the risk as well as the reward. I think we should go back and talk to him. What do we have to lose besides money?”
So, I called Mr. Ingram and we made an appointment to see him a few days later when the store was closed. Kyle made it clear that we were interested in trying out the cowbell, but couldn’t shell out thousands of dollars and assume all the risk that the whole thing might just be a hoax. We’d buy it only if he came way down on the price. Otherwise, we were open to some kind of deal where we became joint owners with him in exchange for me being the guinea pig.
“If I let you two become joint owners with me just for testing it out, I’ve still assumed all the financial risk of buying the thing in the first place,” the store owner pointed out. “If it’s a hoax, you’re not out anything, but I am.”
“Yes,” Kyle agreed, “but if it does work, we’re assuming all of the physical risk. Who knows what this’ll do to Ella, either temporarily or permanently?” he pointed out. The guy frowned and shook his head, acknowledging Kyle’s point.
Mr. Ingram replied, “So, let’s assume for a moment you discover the cowbell is magic. What would we do then? I wouldn’t sell my half to you for anything you could afford.”
“And we wouldn’t sell our half to you for anything you could afford, either,” Kyle echoed. “If that were the case, for as long as we shared ownership, I would think that we should be free to use it as much as we want if it didn’t interfere with making money from it. You can’t use it and you don’t know anyone else who would be willing.
“We could sell one-time experiences while retaining ownership, and possibly have a lucrative, ongoing income stream. Those buying the experience could use it just for the night of a full moon, or for a month including two full moons if they wanted to transform permanently, or anything in between. Or we could sell the thing outright if the price were right. Then Ella and I would have to decide whether to transform her permanently before relinquishing it to the new owner.”
“The only downside to that plan is that if we wanted to use it every full moon indefinitely, we wouldn’t be able to,” I pointed out. “The only way we could be assured of doing that would be to buy it outright. With your plan, Kyle, I wouldn’t get to use it whenever there was a paying customer, and potentially we’d have to decide to between permanently changing me or never being able to do it again. I’d rather have the option of temporarily transforming every month if I want.”
The shop owner said, “I don’t think we’d want to let people have it for more than a night at a time, and they’d have to use it in a place that we controlled. Otherwise, it would be too easy for a priceless artifact to simply disappear. And if we do rent it out regularly for a good price, I don’t know if we’d ever want to sell it.”
“You know, in order to find people to rent the cowbell, we’d have to put word out that we had it and have proof it actually worked,” I remarked. “That would create all kinds of unwanted attention. We’d have to have sophisticated, expensive security in place 24/7/365. People would be stalking each of us, maybe trying to kidnap us to hold us for ransom in exchange for the damned thing. If I were to be permanently transformed I’d probably have paparazzi following me around taking pics for the tabloids. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the fewer people who know about this, the better.”
We all understood the others’ points and perspectives and agreed that we should think more about what we each wanted to get out of this opportunity, and what the unintended consequences might be, before deciding anything. We agreed to meet again in a week.
Needless to say, Kyle and I discussed the matter extensively during that time. Assuming that the cowbell actually worked, which we had to keep reminding ourselves was highly unlikely, he agreed with me that we’d need to keep this all very hush-hush, or we’d never have any privacy or even safety. We discussed what it would be worth to us if I had the ability to transform into a real hucow once a month, what it would be worth to us if we could make the transformation permanent, and whether we’d even ever want to do the latter. We asked ourselves how much money we’d be willing to throw away only to find out that the cowbell didn’t have any powers after all.
We talked more about how our lives would be upended if I were permanently a hucow. It largely depended on how extensive the transformation was, which we wouldn’t know until I’d tried it at least for a night. If I could hide my cow parts without too much difficulty, I might be able to get away with it. But if they were impossible to hide, I’d either have to go into seclusion for the rest of my life or become a public spectacle.
And what other implications might there be? Would I still be able to donate my milk or would it be wasted? Would we still be able to have children? Would our babies be fully human or hucows? If it did work and we ever wanted to sell it, what did we know about pricing, marketing, and selling a priceless artifact to the right people, again, without calling undue attention to ourselves?
A much more practical concern was that we simply didn’t have five thousand dollars to blow on something like this, regardless of whether it worked, and especially if we weren’t willing or able to rent it out or sell it. Unless we could get the store owner to come way down on the price, we’d either have to pass or get someone to go in on it with us. We thought more about that. Would we want to share the cowbell with, say, the Meyers? We hadn’t even thought of them until just then.
Before we could resolve any of that, our week was up and we met with Mr. Ingram again. “I’ve been thinking about some of the things you said last week, Ella,” he said, “and I think you’re right. For our own safety, we can’t let it be widely known that we have this magical cowbell, assuming of course that it works as advertised. That makes it worth less than I thought, since there’ll be little to no competition for it. That being the case, I’m willing to come down on the price quite a bit. I can let you have it for only three thousand dollars.”
“It seems to me that you have no potential customers for it besides us,” Kyle countered, “and to us, it’s just an ordinary cowbell with a fanciful story that anyone would be crazy to think could be remotely true. That makes it worth, say, a hundred dollars to us, and that’s only because I’m really feeling gullible right now.”
“I can’t sell it for only a hundred dollars,” Mr. Ingram protested. “I have a lot more invested in it than that.”
“Sounds like you were a lot more gullible than I am, then,” replied Kyle. “How is that our problem? We’re under no obligation to make you whole.”
“And I’m under no obligation to sell it at all,” the antique man retorted. “I can just sit on it until someone more gullible than me comes along.”
“You know you don’t want to do that,” Kyle said, pushing back. “I know how this works. You can’t keep your money tied up in inventory that won’t sell. Better to cut your losses, to get what you can for it and move on.”
I found the entire exchange pretty amusing. Last week Kyle and Mr. Ingram were plotting how they could both get filthy rich from this old cowbell. Now, Kyle was close to convincing him his best option was to sell it to us at a loss.
“How much do you have in it?” Kyle asked, trying to get him to tip his hand.
“I paid the old lady five hundred dollars for it,” he admitted sheepishly.
“How can you even stay in business, paying five Benjamins for an old cowbell just because someone comes in with a crazy story about it being magic?” Kyle asked, pushing hard. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you two-fifty for it because I feel sorry for you. That’ll cut your loss in half.”
“A thousand,” Mr. Ingram counter-offered.
“Come on, Ella, let’s go,” Kyle said to me. “This guy isn’t serious about selling that old thing. He’s just wasting our time.” Kyle got up to leave, and I followed his lead.
“I’ll take five hundred for it, but not a penny less,” Mr. Ingram suggested, calling after us.
Kyle turned and repeated, “Two-fifty,” not budging from his most recent offer.
“Now you’re the one who’s not serious,” Mr. Ingram replied.
“Let me know when you’re down to two-fifty,” Kyle called out over his shoulder, and we exited the building and got in our car. Kyle backed out of the parking space and put the car in gear.
At that point, I saw Mr. Ingram come out the door and run after us as the car starting moving forward. Kyle was watching where he was going and didn’t notice. “Kyle, wait,” I said to him. “Ingram’s chasing after us.” Kyle stopped the car.
Mr. Ingram ran up to my side of the car and I rolled down the window. Out of breath, he said, “All right, you win. I’ll take two-fifty for it, if you pay in cash.” We parked again and all went back into the store together. Kyle paid the man and we left again, this time with the cowbell and everything that came with it.
Driving home, we both had big smiles on our faces as we each considered what had just happened and the possibilities of what might happen on the next full moon. I said to my farmer, “I had no idea you were such a shrewd negotiator, Kyle. If my math’s right, we got this for only five percent of what he was originally asking. Where’d you learn to do that?”
“Nowhere,” he replied. “It just kind of happened naturally. I was prepared to give him up to a thousand for it, but once he told us how much he paid for it, I decided right then that I wasn’t going to give him more than half of that. Not because I didn’t want it that badly any more, but because I had a strong feeling I could get him to come down to that if I kept making him feel stupid for paying as much as he did, and remind him that he didn’t have any other viable customers who would even pay anywhere near as much as that. I don’t know where that feeling came from, but I followed my hunch and it paid off.”
“I didn’t know we even had a thousand dollars to spend,” I replied.
“We didn’t. I would have had to work out a payment plan or something. We had two-fifty to spend. I brought it along as a down payment.”
When we got home, I tried on the collar with the cowbell attached to it. Of course, nothing happened; nothing was supposed to happen until the night of a full moon, and only if I were wearing it then. That was another week and a half away.